More information : (Centred SE 452440) Deserted Medieval Village of Toulston (site of) (NAT) (1)
SE 452440. Deserted Medieval Village of Toulston mentioned as Togleston in Domesday and Tolliston in 1379 Poll Tax when thirty persons are mentioned. A small but clear site on the ground, south of the farm. (2-4)
There are no extant remains of this village. A few slight indistinguishable scarps, a section of a possible perimeter bank occur in the area SE 4525 4405; but no intelligible pattern is visible. (5)
SE 452440. Deserted village of Toulston. Scheduled. (6)
As described by authy 5. (7)
Scheduled. (8)
The earthworks of Toulston medieval village are visible on air photographs, primarily embanked crofts/ tofts, centred at 4530 4415. In 1995 parchmarks revealed the foundations of several buildings, centred at SE 4530 4418. The site of Toulston Hall (see SE 44 SE 2) and its post medieval formal gardens overlies the southern part of the settlement and it is difficult to distinguish between the medieval and post medieval features from air photographs. (9)
The northern part of the scheduled area, north of the brook/ponds and west of St Helen's Farm, was visited in light of an application for a new plantation. Close inspection determined that there are some significant settlement remains in the lowest part of the field, linked to a hollow way which led to a former ford across the brook. These include one substantial building platform straddled by a NNW/SSE fence line, and another possible platform to the west. Both are surrounded by smaller terraces and worn yards, although pasture improvement to the west and old episodes of dumping to the east of the dividing fence has obscurred the finer details. It cannot be said catagorically that these are medieval village remains rather than farm or ancillary buildings associated with the late/post-medieval hall opposite. Beyond these features, upslope and to the north, the earthworks are of a different order. There are neither terraced house platforms nor obvious yards or toft boundaries. The principal feature is a shallow double banked hollow way which curves across the foot of the slope, possibly an earlier carriage drive to Toulston Grange (now St Helen's farmhouse). This predates the earliest OS map, but may incorporate wear along a footpath between the Grange and the Hall, shown on the 1891 edition. Up-slope and to the north of this feature are faint traces of broad ridge and furrow cultivation which appear to be overlain by the old carriageway. It would appear that the carriageway occupies (more or less) the dividing line between the back of the settlement earthworks and the fields beyond. There are two disjointed sections of ditch on the eastern side of the field - possible earlier field boundaries (although not in line with the ridge and furrow) - and a ploughed down bank flanking the northern boundary, which may override the earlier cultivation ridges, and possibly relates to a later (mapped on 1st edition) driveway to the Grange. (10)
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